


Parenthood

by joeyrz



Category: Xena: Warrior Princess
Genre: Challenge Response, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-01-30
Updated: 2001-01-30
Packaged: 2017-10-17 06:58:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/174128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joeyrz/pseuds/joeyrz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ares talks about stuff and Strife.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Parenthood

**Author's Note:**

> Answer to KSA’s 3-word challenge for X-mas ’00-’01. My words were: Mischief, Tickle, Kitten.   
> This story is really different from my usual style (IMO), but yes, I *did* write it!   
> Thanks: Many, many, many thanks to my wonderful friend JaimeBlue, for helping in the production of this fic. You’re the best!

It wasn't a big surprise that I ended up with him, really. I'd been expecting it for a few years. Get your minds out of the gutter ladies; it isn't what you all think.

I'm talking about my nephew, Strife, or Little Mischief, as I used to call him those first few years. This is a story, not my story, just *a* story of what really happened back then. I want to clear the air, clear up some misconceptions about us.

Strife is my twin sister's son. Eris, who's better known as Discord, suffered at the hands of our *brother*. She wasn't always as bitter and evil as she is now. Eris had an inner joy to her, she loved life, and her job was just that, a job. But Apollo shattered her world. Being imprisoned, tortured and raped for a week straight changed her.

She became violent, distrustful, looking for trouble everywhere, and more than a bit insane. She became Discord. And she was forced to carry the child Apollo had forced on her. Little Strife suffered her rage during his first four years, until, too tired to deal with him anymore, she gave him to me.

I didn't know what to do with him. I'd never raised a child, not even my own. But I knew that even though Eris hated him, she loved him too, and she trusted no one to raise him, but me.

So there I was, a war god turned uncle and father in a second, the time it took Eris to leave him in my temple, and I had a battle to attend to.

So what do I do? I zap myself to Pan's temple, pick up a purebred black kitten (with one seriously mischievous four year old on my hip), go back to my temple and clear one bedroom. I conjure every toy I can think of, make the kitten un-hurtable, make sure there's enough unperishable food on hand, seal the room tighter than Hestia's crotch, and go to my war.

To say the temple was devastated when I got back is an understatement. It looked like a thousand foot submarine had dropped onto it. It seems that though I made sure no one could get out of the room, someone had gotten in.

So there I was, covered in blood, sweat, dirt and overall gore, when I get hit by a flying feather pillow... to which the collision was too much and exploded on me. It was hard trying to intimidate a four year old and a floating teenager currently engaged in a tickle fight when you’re covered in white feathers.

But intimidate I did. And said floating teenager (my then 15 year old son, Cupid, for those of you still trying to figure it out) let go of Strife and landed with an ‘oof’ on the floor. He tried giving me his puppy dog eyes, looking for forgiveness, but after peeling a feather off my nose, and trying to get the rest off my whiskers, forgiveness was the last thing on my mind.

Okay... the truth? It was pretty funny. And I was glad that Cupid was playing with his cousin. But, I’m the big, bad, god of war. I had an image to preserve. So, Apollo not being the only ‘brilliant’ one in the family, I made the two little gods clean up after themselves. The mortal way. I gave them a bucket, a mop, some soap, and directed them to the ever flowing well behind the temple. On the other side of the temple. My Olympian temple. Which is longer than a football field.

They don’t call me the big, bad, god of war for nothing...

~*~*~*~

So Strife grew up, and well, the little tyke taught me the meaning of being a father... a good father. And when that bitch Callisto killed him, I thought I might have died with him. But he didn’t die really, for Zeus had deemed no god could kill another... and no god could stay dead by the hands of another god.

So he was reborn in Eris again. But this time, it was not under Apollo’s forcing, but the love she had shared with another godling. Or so I think... she never said who the father was. Because she said I was. That I always had been and always will be.

So I had other children. And I protected them. I killed for them. And I grieved for them. A father should never outlive their children. And that was the price to pay for mortal children. I understood why the rest of the Olympians never gave a second thought to their mortal offspring.

Because they would either end up dead like Dad, or torn with grieve like me.

Because my son didn’t deserve to die like that, at the hands of the girl he’d once called ‘niece’. Because his brother should have gotten a trial for his deeds, instead of being stoned to death. Because their brother should have never trusted that man who said he loved him.

Because they were my sons and daughters. Children of the god of war, a god who couldn’t save them.

But Little Mischief stayed with me, and my Little Heart too. And we saw the world being reborn as beautifully as Strife had once done.

Because, be it as it may, Strife was never or has ever been a selfless, crazy bastard. And maybe, I could have just skipped all the talk and just said, that a job is a job is a job. And being the god of mischief, or discord or war or even love, doesn’t make you that. So Strife isn’t *just* mischief, or Eris just discord, Cupid love or me war. It’s part of us, but not all of us. And we do our job the best we can.

So don’t believe all the stories. All the myths. All the lies. And you want to know something else, just ask, but never assume you know.

~*~*~*~

The End


End file.
